The Black Box

CRASH

We are beginning the series on the mystery of the black box. We use the analogy of the black box of an airplane. when a plane wrecks, you go and search for he black box to find out what went wrong…. what happens if a society or movement crashes? is there a possibility of finding a “black box”? i think that the history of society has to be a history of movements. every time people get a good idea that they think can “change the world” they lead off a following and attempt to begin in a small way first. sometimes these movements are good things… sometimes not. when they crash, they often leave behind some written record… a black box so to speak. i think that the primary example of this is the bible. the first church crashed sometime in the second century and there were two things left behind…. one is a religion that really did (and still does not) resemble the origin in any foundational way. the second thing left behind.. is the black box, the bible, a record of what went wrong in the flight of the church. last week we talked about the marriage of church and state under Constantine in the 300′s. how did that one event forever corrupt the church and change the nature of the gospel…….

Has the Church Gone Cockoo?

The Cockoo

cockoo bird

Just like the cuckoo laying its eggs in the tepid warmth of an unguarded nest, so Satan planted the seeds of a self-exalting religious hierarchy among the growing apathy of the early church. The passive laity gladly welcomed this special ruling class who would fill up the awkward silences in their assemblies.
The Church has gone cuckoo,” a friend of mine said recently. Probably a lot of Christians would agree with that statement. Some Christians would mention famous preachers who have turned out to be adulterers, like Jimmy Swaggart, or embezzlers like Jim Bakker, or bamboozlers like countless others. Some would start talking about the Episcopalians who chose a homosexual as their bishop. But then someone else would bring up recent surveys that showed 60% of Christians approved of cohabitation, 40% had engaged in premarital sex, and 14% had committed adultery. And then everybody would get very quiet, and the question of why homosexuals aren’t expelled wouldn’t come up again.
Of course, when my friend said the Church had “gone cuckoo” he wasn’t talking about the modern moral corruption that saturates Christianity. He wasn’t referring to the more than 37,000 denominations worldwide. He wasn’t even thinking of the nineteen centuries of doctrinal squabbles, inquisitions, persecutions, crusades, and religious wars, or even all the national wars with Christians fighting on both sides. He was thinking about birds…
The cuckoo is one of the most detestable birds on earth. Those who study nature know why. It sneaks into the nest of a smaller bird, such as a sparrow, when the mother is absent and lays one of its own eggs among the others. When the egg hatches, the young cuckoo pushes all the other eggs out of the nest, plus any chicks already hatched, and starts gobbling up all the food brought by its doting foster parents.
And what, you may ask, do these horrible birds have to do with the Church?
In the beginning, the Church was a devoted band of disciples. They had left everything to follow the Messiah, and He made it quite clear that anyone who did not forsake all (including house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, wives, children, farms, and even his own life) could not be His disciple. They were dedicated to His commandments, especially the command that they would love each other just as He had loved them. This new commandment produced a visible expression of love and unity which made it clear that they were actually followers of the Son of God Himself. It even persuaded the people of the world that God loved them so much that He had sent His very own Son to save them.
The result was a life of sharing in which there were no rich or poor. They assembled frequently for teachings, ate all their meals together, and turned their gatherings into vibrant celebrations. The apostle Paul described a typical gathering this way: each member contributed a song, a teaching, a revelation, etc., and everything was done with a view toward building each other up.
Not long after the apostles began spreading this new life of the Spirit throughout the world, Satan himself mounted an offensive against the Church. His tactic was not the mere outward persecution you’ve probably heard about — throwing the Christians to the lions, and all that. Instead, like the cuckoo bird, it was a plan of covert infiltration. The New Testament contains many references to this tactic: men who crept in unnoticed, false brethren, even servants of Satan disguised as servants of righteousness.
Our Master warned about this infiltration. He said that such men would claim to be under His authority, agreeing that He is the Messiah, looking for all the world like sheep, but being in reality savage wolves. The apostle Paul added that they would rise up, even from among the elders of the Church.
Then in 2 Corinthians 11 Paul said they had arrived, servants of Satan bringing a different gospel, a different Jesus, and a different spirit.
Oh, right, we know all about that,” someone might say. “Those false apostles in 2 Corinthians were the Judaizers. They tried to make the Gentiles get circumcised and keep the law.” But nothing in either letter to the Corinthians warns against receiving circumcision or being put under the law. Instead, Paul simply speaks of these men as “super-apostles,” full of fleshly boasting and self-exaltation while wearing a mask of righteousness.
Paul instantly recognized the impostors. Why? Because they were so far away from the servant leadership that our Master established among his true apostles. They were like the great men of the world, lording it over those they ruled, and completely unlike the carpenter from Nazareth who put a towel around his waist and washed his disciples’ feet. “Let him who is greatest among you become as the youngest,” He had said, “and the leader as the servant.” But instead of obeying the Master’s command and walking like He walked, these men eagerly received the glory of men. They even urged it and insisted upon it.
They were a “new breed” of leader “arising” from among the true shepherds of the flock, and drawing a following to themselves. The warnings to the Churches in the Book of Revelation called them Nicolaitans, a term which literally means “dominating the people (the laity).” Satan’s servants put on a mask of righteousness that was so good that it even hid Satan’s sin of self-exaltation. They prophesied falsely and ruled on their own authority, and the people loved it so. It wasn’t long before these Nicolaitans were doing all the hypocritical, self-exalting things that Messiah had condemned in the scribes and Pharisees: taking elevated seats in the front of the assembly, dressing in long robes, even being called by special titles like “Father” or “Doctor” (which means Teacher).
This infiltration was taking place toward the end of the first century, at the very time the Holy Spirit was warning the Churches that they had lost their first love, had become lukewarm, and were going to be plunged into darkness if they didn’t repent and do the deeds they had done in the beginning. Just like the cuckoo laying its eggs in the tepid warmth of an unguarded nest, so Satan planted the seeds of a self-exalting religious hierarchy among the growing apathy of the early church. The passive laity gladly welcomed this special ruling class who would fill up the awkward silences in their assemblies. A few alert disciples (those who had not stained the garment of their conscience with indifference) tried to be loyal to the apostolic brothers, but were quickly excommunicated, as John wrote in his third epistle:
I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say…. neither does he himself receive the brethren, and he forbids those who desire to do so, and puts them out of the church.
By the beginning of the second century, the original servant leadership of elders and overseers that Messiah established had been replaced by the exalted offices of the clergy. Ignatius of Antioch wrote several epistles typical of the era, urging loyalty to this prestigious ecclesiastical system:
Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles…
The replacement had become complete. The Church had gone cuckoo. What once had been the pure dwelling place for the Spirit of love and humility was on its way to becoming instead a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird.
What began as the Nicolaitan uprising of the second century has now become established Christian tradition and practice. This cuckoo-bird system of clergy and laity has adapted itself to every culture and insinuated itself into every nation. Indeed, it is one of the few things that every faction of Christianity embraces. It is a testimony to its power that none of the religious squabbles and denominational splits of the last two thousand years have resulted in a single church that is free from the clergy-laity system.

Did This Record The Death Nell Of The Early Christian Movement?

They call it the epistle of James. It is found near the end of the New Testament. Tradition says the author was “the brother of the Lord” and that he wrote it to the Jews living outside Judea. Most scholars date it within 30 years of the founding of the Church. Many say it was written as early as 45 AD.
Tradition is a powerful force, isn’t it? It often carries more influence than common sense. If you are one who places more weight on tradition than on common sense, please don’t bother reading this article. But if you consider yourself a free thinker, then please consider this, as well:
Most assumptions about the Book of James are wrong. They are neither based on the letter itself nor on hard historical evidence. And worst of all, these fallacies aren’t just the result of ignorance — they are attempts to deny and conceal a dirty little secret. But we’ll discuss that later. First, let’s consider the objective evidence.
Who Wrote It and When
The author only refers to himself as “James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Beyond this, he makes no reference to his own identity, or authority, or place of residence, as Paul, Peter, and John do in their letters. Christian tradition presumes him to be “the brother of the Lord” based simply on another presumption of Christian tradition — that everything in the New Testament must have been written by an apostle or a bishop or somebody important in the clergy. And Christian tradition further presumes that the clergy-laity system was part of the foundation of the early Church.
Of course, we can tell from what Paul wrote that a distinction between clergy and laity was foreign to the early
Church.1 According to Paul, all disciples were expected to take their identity as priests seriously and to bring to each gathering a song, a teaching, a revelation, and so on, and he encouraged all the disciples to prophesy. This is supported by Hebrews 3:6, which tells us that the defining characteristic of God’s house is something translated as
“confidence” — the parrhesia (literally “outspokenness” or “freedom of speech”) of the people.
So there is no reason, other than the traditions of the clergy-laity system, to think of the writer James as being an apostle or even a leader in the early Church. There is every reason to believe that, like many of the Old Testament prophets, he rose from obscurity, moved by the Holy Spirit to express his concerns.
The usual date assigned to the writing (45-63 AD) is also a presumption, based on the presumption that James, “the Lord’s brother” (who is supposed to have been killed around 63 AD), is the author. Some scholars have objected to an early date, arguing that the spiritual condition James addresses is such a stark contrast with the fervor of the disciples at the time of Pentecost. Others reason that the sins he mentions “could have been found in the Church at any decade of its history” — a remarkable rationalization which we will address shortly. First, though, let’s consider who received this “epistle.”
Who It Was Written To
The opening sentence says, “to the twelve tribes scattered abroad.” The traditional take on this phrase is that “the Lord’s brother” wrote a general letter to all the Jews who lived outside of Judea — as if they would have read a letter from someone in a despised sect that was spoken against everywhere. But there is a problem with presuming that these “twelve tribes” are the physical tribes of Israel. You see, only the two tribes of the Babylonian captivity, Judah and Benjamin, along with a few Levites, retained any identity as Israelites. The other ten tribes, taken captive by Assyria, had been swallowed up by the surrounding cultures, and it would have been impossible to address a letter to them. Besides, the term “twelve tribes” would hardly refer to the Jews (technically, only one tribe), and could scarcely be applied to Jewish believers (comprising only a small percentage of that tribe).
Actually, other references in the New Testament make it clear that the term “twelve tribes” referred to the whole Church — a spiritual nation made up of both physical Jews and physical Gentiles. For example, the “Bride of Christ” in Revelation is pictured as a city with twelve gates, each gate being one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Also, in Paul’s trial before King Agrippa he said that, in order to attain the promise made to Abraham, the “twelve tribes” that Paul was part of were earnestly serving God night and day — and this was why the Jews (obviously not part of the tribes he referred to) were accusing him.
Given the objective evidence, it is clear that the “twelve tribes” James was writing to was identical with the “Commonwealth of Israel” of Ephesians 2:12, made up of both Jews and Gentiles, who had been made into one nation by the blood of Messiah. But there were some problems in the commonwealth, and that is what moved James to write.
Why He Wrote It
James saw that the new nation — the one Messiah had purchased with the sacrifice of His own life — was on the verge of being destroyed. Those who had been united through the cleansing power of His blood were now becoming alienated from one another, because His blood was no longer covering their sins. And the reason their sins were not being covered was that they were no longer confessing and forsaking their sins. The Church was in deep trouble — and it wasn’t just one or two communities, such as Corinth or Laodicea, it was the whole nation (the twelve tribes). There was a shocking contrast between the condition of the Church that James was writing to and the quality of the life the disciples lived at the time of Pentecost.
Unlike the congregation described in Acts 4:32, who were all of “one heart and soul,” James portrayed a Church that was splintered by quarrels and conflicts, largely as a result of the poor members envying the rich. That envy was based in part on the failure of the prosperous to meet the needs of the less prosperous, but both the envy of the poor and the self-centeredness of the rich could be traced to friendship with and love for the world, which James flatly condemned as spiritual adultery. Not only were the prosperous neglecting the needs of others, but the poor were being slighted socially, while the rich were lavished with attention. James rebuked this practice as inconsistent with having faith in Messiah.
Despite the sins of the affluent, James did not justify those who were envious of them. He condemned both bitter jealousy and selfish ambition as demonic, especially when those attitudes resulted in defaming their fellow disciples. To those who would not bridle their tongue, but hypocritically blessed God while cursing men made in His image,
James declared their religion to be worthless. Still, he reserved his harshest words for those who stored up riches, especially by unjust means:
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days… (James 5:1-5)
The topic that James is best remembered for, however, is that of faith versus works. But it wasn’t just a general doctrinal subject that he addressed with theological detachment. He was specifically attacking the lack of love in the Church that spawned their favoritism toward the rich and neglect of the needy. He was alarmed to find so rare those works of love which had been so common in the Church’s infancy. He was appalled at the complacency of those who failed to meet their brother’s needs while still professing to have faith. He even boldly challenged their claim of being saved. So-called faith, without works of love, was to James not only useless, but also dead.
The scenario painted by James is so vastly different from the portrait of the Church in the book of Acts that it leads the reader to wonder whether the two writings were actually talking about the same group. In Acts, the brethren were devoted to the teachings of the apostles, were together, associated with each other, were of one mind, one heart, and one soul, gladly ate their meals together, shared everything they had, and even sold their possessions to meet the needs of their brothers, to the point that none among them were needy. In James, however, the brethren heard the apostles’ teaching but did not do it, were continually traveling from town to town in search of financial gain, were divided along economic lines, and even defamed and quarreled with each other because of the economic injustice in their midst.
The Church that James was writing to had degenerated far beyond the condition of the individual churches addressed elsewhere in the New Testament. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians (written around 55 AD) spoke of the foolishness and carnality of an immature community, but gave clear direction what they must do in order to grow up. John’s letters to the churches in the book of Revelation (written around 90 AD) pointed out the things each one was faithful in, as well as the things they had fallen away from, and once again, called each church to heed the specific warnings and mend its ways or else face the consequences. James, however, was writing unilaterally to all the churches, addressing a spiritual condition virtually identical to that of the Pharisaical Judaism the Son of God had called His followers out from. For the Church to have reached that state, James could not have been writing before the beginning of the second century AD.
General Epistle or Underground Tract?
Unlike the writings of Paul and John, which gave authoritative direction to specific churches, James only stated the general problems and made an appeal to individual disciples to obey the commandments of their
Master if they found themselves in those situations. It is as if James had no hope of calling the Church back to the deeds of love that characterized the Church at Pentecost. John, on the other hand, specifically commanded the
Ephesians to repent and do the deeds of love they had done in the beginning, for if they did not, their lampstand (their validity before God as a church) would be taken away. But James did not try to keep any lampstands lit. Things had degenerated beyond that point, and all he could do was simply warn the rich men in the congregations (he did not refer to them as brothers) about the judgment coming upon them and appeal to each of the brothers who were oppressed by them to bear their sufferings patiently and be true to the commands of the Master.
It is obvious from the context that the sins James was confronting had become accepted practices within the Church. It made him so distraught that he wrote down the burden of his heart and began distributing the document to the entire Church. And so, rather than being a “general epistle” by someone in authority, the “Epistle of James” is clearly more of an “underground manuscript” exposing the problems that the shepherds and elders and overseers had turned a blind eye to. James himself, rather than holding the prestigious position of “the Lord’s brother,” was more of an insurgent — not outwardly belligerent against the hierarchy of the compromising Church, but inwardly revolting against their accepted policies. It’s not hard to imagine the outrage among the rich and prosperous which this little essay generated originally — back when it wasn’t tucked away in the back of the Bible and watered down by commentaries. Just think what would happen if you stood up in the midst of a worship service and read aloud his condemnation of the rich.
Why They Got It Wrong
Someone may ask, “So if James was really an obscure outsider in the second century, grieved by sins the Church was tolerating, why don’t most people see it that way, and how did his writings become part of the Bible?” The second question is the simplest to answer: James is part of the Bible because it is almost entirely a restatement of Messiah’s teachings. It had to become part of the canon because it is so utterly orthodox. The first question takes a little more explanation.
Recall that some commentators claimed that the sins James spoke of “could have been found in the Church at any decade of its history.” There was a reason for that rationalization: To admit that backbiting, defamation, favoritism, quarrels, and (most of all) divisions between rich and poor were not part of the status quo in the first century Church would raise a very uncomfortable question: “Why have they been the status quo throughout the rest of Christian history?”
It is very convenient, even comforting, to claim that James was “the Lord’s brother” writing in 45 AD. That would mean that the obvious deeds of the flesh were running rampant through the Church scarcely a decade after it was founded. And if the Lord’s brother could do no more about it than moan weakly, “these things ought not to be this way,” then that lets the rest of us off the hook, doesn’t it? If this is the way it has always been, then this is the way it will always be, because the flesh is just too strong and human nature is too warped to do anything about it. The obvious conclusion: “All we can do is just have faith in the Lord and wait ’til we get to heaven.”
Most people are content to accept such rationalizations and cover up the “dirty little secret” that the whole Church fell away from the faith around the end of the first century. Most people miss the fact that James tells us twice that “faith” without works is dead, once that such “faith” is useless, and once that such “faith” cannot save a person. They eagerly agree with him that “no man can tame the tongue,” but overlook his comment that if a man does not bridle his tongue, then his religion is completely worthless. But not all people are quite that dull. Martin Luther wasn’t. What James said about bridling the tongue irked him, because Luther was never one to control his tongue. What James said about works being the proof of faith especially irked Luther, because it messed up his pet theory that “faith alone” was all God required. That is why Luther called
James an “epistle of straw.”
Hopefully, you who read this will be as perceptive as Luther, but rather than rejecting what James had to say about works, you will understand the implications of it. Consider what happened to the false “faith” that had taken over the Church in James’ day and failed to produce the works of love that were normal for all disciples when the Church began. Did it go away? Was it replaced by a resurgence of the self-denying love that motivated the believers at Pentecost? Hasn’t the bad fruit of that “faith” only gotten worse over the last nineteen centuries, in spite of reformations and counter reformations

James, The Insurgent

and countless so-called revivals? Instead, isn’t it time for the restoration of the life of love that resulted from the message of the apostles? The “faith” that has been passed down to us by organized religion is none other than the false “faith” James was exposing — a “faith” that cannot save. Only if we can realize this do we have any hope of being delivered from a worthless religion where such “faith” is the norm and brought back to the true faith that turned the world upside down. According to James, there should be no such thing as a “rich Christian”

Our Next (July 27th) Forum Topic

The Shift From Community Life to Doctrine

After the first century, right doctrine became the litmus test for faith instead of loving as Christ commanded

burning heritics

. Late in the first century, Jude urged the believers to contend for the faith delivered once for all to the saints. This word faith meant the persuasion to do what Christ commanded, for this was the purpose for the faith the 3000 received by hearing the gospel on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:36-45 .
Faith in Jude 1:3 meant persuasion from God to do His will, which first came to the saints by hearing the gospel. But today the word faith in Jude 1:3 is taken to simply mean the knowledge and assent to religious truths, without regard to good works, which is therefore a false faith .
The only assurance of faith is Ephesians 2:10 and 4:16 — doing the good works one was saved to do in order to build up the Body. Jude 1:3 has nothing whatsoever to do with doctrinal correctness, as the context in verse 4 proves. It speaks of grace being turned into license to do your own thing, doing what is right in one’s own eyes, since there was no longer authority from God to be adhered to .
There was no restraint; each one did whatever he wanted, but still maintained a form of godliness, although denying its power .
Doctrine, or the right theology, requires no faith to believe . Faith is for the purpose of doing the works prepared for one to do in the Body of Christ, the Community. Theology requires no faith, but John 13:34-35does require faith:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
1 John 3:16 and 23 also require faith, without which even someone with the right doctrine won’t pass the litmus test of 1 John 3:14 — regardless of whether he says he believe s. So, believing the right doctrine requires no faith, no love, and no laying down of one’s life for his brothers.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:1-2)
No one can do Romans 12:1 unless he obeys verse 2 by faith as well. Otherwise, the faith of Jude 1:3 is considered merely doctrine, the theology of theologians, learned men who can quote many scripture verses, but laying down their lives as 1 John 3:16 says is far from them. They can only teach their flocks the same “faith” as they have. A student, when fully trained, will be like his teacher. So their empty “faith” has been passed down ever since theological Bible schools have existed on earth. They have no relationship with the true Messiah  and can only give mental assent to theological terms, concepts, and decrees thought up by the apostates of the fourth century .
These apostate leaders valued doctrine higher than love and ended up persecuting people, deposing bishops, and banishing into exile those considered to have the wrong doctrine.
Ultimately, they started killing those they deemed heretics. So why is it always those with the right doctrine who end up killing those with the wrong doctrine? They obviously didn’t understand 1 Cor 1:10 in the right spirit. You can’t force unity. Forced unity is not the right spirit. As 2 Cor 11:4,13-15 clearly states, only Satan’s servants or ministers could ever do what the Christian theologians did to dissenters. All this was in absolute violation of the Master’s words to leave them alone, to let them be .
The reason Jude so urgently said to contend for the faith that was imparted in the beginning was because of a change he saw coming in — away from the pattern in Acts 2 & 4 and toward what would become the state church of Constantine. We can see the change in the way Christians thought, being persuaded and influenced by a different spirit, propagated by a different gospel, and ending up with a different Jesus from the one they accepted in the beginning .
The church turned from being the persecuted to being the persecutor. By that time, the Holy Spirit had long ago left the church . No longer could anyone truthfully confess 1 John 4:2-3 or John
12:26 from his experience, but only from his mind. As the church declined in its love in every place , in spite of Paul’s exhortation to them in Ephesians 6:24, none seemed to be able to pass the litmus test of 1 John 5:13. This was because 1 John 3:16 and 23 were no longer the emphasis, but rather mental assent to a list of doctrines now called “the faith.” So this doctrinal “faith” replaced the works true faith was meant to energize, as James later wrote in the second century .
So as the church careened down its fatal decline, the emphasis shifted to doctrine, which is now called or considered “faith.” But Jude, who wrote by the end of the first century, looking into the second, urged that they contend or have a vigorous defense of the faith delivered once and for all to God’s people. What he meant by this was the faith that produced the expression of the abundant life recorded in Acts 2 & 4. That was “the faith once for all delivered to the saints. ” Faith came to those who had ears to hear .
But after love left, the Holy  Spirit left. Eventually those who were as John 9:41 describes took the word contend in Jude 1:3 to mean taking up arms to force their “right doctrine” upon those with “wrong doctrine” under pain of death. This was contrary to the words of the true Messiah, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. ”
Jude wrote to the few who were not yet disqualified:
To those who are called, sanctified (set apart) in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. (Jude 1:1-2)
It was addressed to those who were still set apart by God the Father, and kept, preserved for Messiah. May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you, who are sanctified as in 1 Corinthians 1:2 — those separated from the world in the Body of Messiah, the Community, as in Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37. They are set apart in a place where the refining process can take place in each one’s life, which cannot be accomplished unless one is separated from fellowship with the world in that place where Messiah actually is in His Body .
In 1 Corinthians 1:2, “in every place” means in every township, just as the letters from Paul were addressed to each community according to its particular town or locality. Starting from Jerusalem, the first community swarmed to surrounding towns in Judea , after which Paul patterned his communities. Of course, it was “with persecutions,” as Mark 10:29-30 promises. This is the mark of those who have separated themselves in a place in which they can be made pure as 1 John 3:1-3, “that they may see Him as He is, and everyone who has this hope in them purifies himself as He is pure. ”
Mark 10:29-30 was Christ’s answer to His disciples’ question, “Who then can be saved ?”  So verse 27 explains how one is saved by obedience to His gospel. Someone has to receive the faith to not only believe in Him, but to do what He required of all whom He would save from this present evil world and put into a place where they could be purified — where He is.  There, and only there, can anyone serve
Him. As 1 Corinthians 1:2 implies, it must be a set-apart place that is in the world, but not of it.23 But this
takes a community in a town.
The word sanctify in John 17:17 is the same as in 1 Corinthians 1:2 — set apart from the evil world system to be made ready (prepared) to rule with Messiah; and John 17:18 is their mission.
As John 17:19 says, Christ had to sanctify Himself, not that He had to be made pure, but He meant to set Himself apart from all other things in order to purify His disciples through the truth of His word — to be made pure as 1 John 3:1-3. The sanctification process  cannot be accomplished without someone being set apart in a particular place (a township or locality) where the work of sanctification can be accomplished in his life . Sanctification, as in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and 7, is the resultant state
befitting those who are sanctified as in 1 Corinthians 1:2.
So for someone to walk down the aisle in the Billy Graham Crusade and be “saved” is impossible, for he goes back home and does the very same things as before, except now supposedly he’s going to heaven when he dies. But has he simply believed in vain, as those in John 2:23-25? Was it only make believe? Might as well make believe you love Him, as to say you do, but not obey Him .  But this is not what Christ told His disciples they had to do to be saved in Mark 10:17-30.
“Who then can be saved?” Only those who hear and obey the gospel, including the “many other words” (the “hard sayings” of Christ) as in Acts 2:36-41 and Mark 10:17- 30. The “rich young ruler” wanted to know what he had to do to be saved. The answer is the same now as it was for the 3,000 on the day of Pentecost, who gave up everything in response to the first message of salvation to be preached after the Messiah ascended, in obedience to His commission . Ask yourself why the preaching of the gospel doesn’t produce the same results today. Could it be a different gospel?

Our topic For July 6th

Nightfall
Finally, the life of Messiah, whose life was the light of men, could no longer be found. The last of the overcomers died or were put out of the churches by men like Diotrephes,  who forcefully suppressed any perceived threat to their solitary authority, or interruptions to their windy monologues (called sermons today). Unlike the sun, which is promised to shine as long as the earth endures,  the light of revelation from God was only given to the humble, the ones willing to do His will. Such was Peter when he proclaimed that Yahshua was the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  Such men and women were the only ones with the life of the Son.
Darkness spread over the land as the last lampstands were taken out of their places,  when each church could no longer make the confession of 1 John 4:2. This meant, as the King James translation accurately puts it, that fewer and fewer churches could honestly say that the Savior was incarnate in their midst.
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.
It was not a doctrinal issue that caused John the apostle to write the letter called “1 John” to the churches. It was a deeper issue regarding the people’s rejection of their Savior. He was no longer welcome in their midst. His words were given lip service, but the people’s hearts were far from Him. They were drifting further and further from the amazing life the early communities had, which was described at length in Acts 2 and 4. This love in action, made possible by His grace, was the faith, or persuasion,  that Jude had exhorted them to contend for in his letter.  He was not speaking of a collection of doctrines about what it meant to believe.
This was just what the Master warned the Ephesians was coming upon them in Revelation 2  if they did not do the deeds they had done at first. Tragically, this warning came just forty years after Paul had admonished the same church to love Messiah with an undying, incorruptible love.
When the communities ceased to be the very incarnation of Messiah, then the darkness Yahshua predicted in John 9 fell on the earth:
I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. (John 9:4-5)
Night fell as the church changed her very nature, a change seen intellectually in defining faith not as the persuasion of the Holy Spirit to do the will of the Father, but instead as the acceptance of a set of beliefs.
Such mental belief resulted in the detachment of belief from the heart, which only mirrored the detachment of believers’ lives from one another. The many sayings of Yahshua and His apostles to love in deed and truth, to abstain from the lusts of the world, to turn their backs on riches, power, and earthly comfort, lost all power to command. The love of Messiah no longer compelled anyone to actually obey His words,  proving that those who claimed to love Him lied — first to themselves, and then to the world.
So the darkness Messiah prophesied of in John 9 only deepened and darkened as the spores of this lethal new belief spread from church to church. Eventually, she indulged in cruel ill-treatment of all who questioned or doubted her. This lifeless belief and cruelty spread over all the earth and down many centuries of time. It was the exact opposite of the witness of the Kingdom that Messiah prophesied would one day be seen by the whole world.  In spite of rivers of words to the contrary, this false gospel had no power to release anyone from his contract with sin and death, which held undisputed sway again over the whole world as soon as night fell.
Thereafter, the only “light” people could relate to as they read their Bibles longingly, wonderingly, was the light of the sun in the sky, and the fruitfulness of the fields on the earth below, to remind them of the time when another light was shining. The willing hearts of those men, gathered in communities, had been like God’s fruitful gardens, bearing the fruit of the Spirit. Yet soon, it was only ancient history, hidden in the past, untouchable in the present.
Still, as the lives of the apostles and first disciples became the stuff of legend, the simple stories and profound parables of the Savior about farming, fishing, baking, and treasures hidden in fields, lived on. Those words continued to fill men with hope. Perhaps the day would come again when that same light would dawn on the earth, breaking the terrible spiritual darkness covering the world after the death of the early church. It had been smothered in a potent mass of spiritual infection and disease, like so much smut feeding on the memory and the very words of that Savior and His apostles, just as the parasitic fungus called smut feeds on corn. Like that dark fungus, the men in their soiled, stained garments — the black robes of the clergy — spread an entirely different life from the one found in the true seed of the Word.

June 29th Forum

As these things usually go, we began on topic, but that quickly generated more questions and discussion in a broader area. We began by talking about the fall of the first century church and how that piece of history is so often over looked by modern historians. most will point to Christianity as the protector of the free world and the holder of knowledge through the dark ages and some will even point to Martin Luther as the father of democracy. All of this could not be farther from the truth. the Fall of the Church, and the havoc that The Christian system then perpetrated on the civilized world set humanity back 1000 years. What we are left with is a devolving social system that claims some connection with “the Truth” that can not be turned around. all of this brings up the questions. What can be done? and-  How do we change the situation? once you look at that aspect, you have to look at “how can you change your self?”. Selfishness is the thing that killed the church to begin with (it was expressed in many ways, the primary one is the system of clergy/laity, and the failure to care for the widows and orphans in their own midst). How is selfishness overcome in the individual’s life? In what ways do self thoughts and actions hurt you? In what ways do your thoughts and actions hurt others? We all know that there are no utopias, but is it possible that there could be a new social order that could put an end to selfishness? it may even be able to acomplish what the early church set out to do…

Our Forum of June 22nd

We had a very nice time. We watched the documentary that we produced to talk about the 1984 police raid on our community in Island Pond Vermont. It brings up a lot of issues in out society. How much authority do parents really have? How much authority does the state have? What separates these two? We spent some time talking about the emerging culture that our community is, and why that threatens some people. Early in the film, one of the states attorneys states that  the failure in island pond set a precedent that “for sure” would not be repeated in at least 50 years. Here we are not quite 25 years out, and it is being repeated. There is an erosion going on that can only lead to one place, that time when all of the earth is going to beholden to one man…. and without his approval, no one will buy or sell.  There is a predicament out there that needs a solution, and often it seems as though that only solution left is to leave that society…..

1984!

When George Orwell wrote 1984… he Wrote of a Government of absolute control. Big brother watched all that you did. The real 1984 was less organized, but just as scary. The Government of the State of Vermont heard from some “experts” and decided that “the North East Kingdom Community Church” needed to be looked at. Instead of knocking on our door, they orchestrated a pre-dawn raid. Search warrants were signed (anything in any house in the town of Island Pond Vermont) and foster care was established for our 112 children. All was in place for a well executed “ends justifies the means” sort of a police action. Fortunately there was a judge who heard from conscience rather than public opinion that day. Judge Frank Mahady said in his opinion that “this was the most illegal court action since Herod ordered the death of all children under the age of two” (I am quoting from memory, so do not hold me to the exact wording). we have done some research following the paper trail backward from that day to its origins… the documentary that we will show in the upstairs of our cafe on June 22nd is the result. June 22nd happens to be the 24th anniversary of the event. Please come join us for the film and what will prove to be a lively discussion after.

The Fading Of The Light

The physical world often gives us insight into the unseen, spiritual side of creation, just as creation itself proclaims the glory and power of its Creator. The Living Bible very clearly describes this knowledge:
For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. (Romans 1:19-21)
The Apostle Paul was trying to help us see that the things in the world around us reveal important aspects of what is unseen, but still very real. There are a host of diseases to which we, animals, and plants are susceptible that come from mildews, spores, and viruses. Some can hardly be described as living organisms, as they are so persistent, so enduring, and so very dark in their nature. These diseases should cause us to stop and think. Are they telling us something we should know? They wait for times of weakness and stress in order to invade, take over and, if possible, turn the host into a great factory for producing more of their own useless, destructive kind. Finally, worn out, the unfortunate host dies under the burden, deprived of nourishment, light, and life.
Smut is a good example of this, in regards to both the fungus which infects weakened plants, and the moral degradation which pervades modern society. No one in his right mind would eat smut-infected corn, yet in some circles it has become a delicacy. In the moral analogy, an upright person would not give his soul over to spiritual smut, yet many falter under the temptation to do what they know is wrong, and even delight in it. Unless one promptly and deliberately turns away from it, the nature of evil begins its work in his soul, just as smut degrades a plant.
Eventually, a person’s taste buds can be trained until what was once revolting becomes a delicacy. He puts away the revulsion he naturally feels at eating the twisted, discolored masses of spores (i.e., corn smut) just to have a new and perverse pleasure in life. In the moral analogy, that is like silencing the voice of one’s conscience which is telling him not to do something that hurts another person. The toll of “smut” weighs on the body and taxes the soul, no matter how much one enjoys it. In the end, as with any sin, it takes away the life of its possessor.
The Infection of the First Communities (Churches)
Something like the invasion of smut happened in the spiritual realm many years ago, as the light faded in the early church. In the beginning, the Holy Spirit enabled them to do what has seemed impossible ever since — put away the obvious deeds of the flesh, such as division, greed, and war, and instead, by His grace, live together in harmony and peace. This was the faith they received, the persuasion and the grace that they could do what was otherwise impossible for men to do. But Christian theology now proclaims it is impossible, yielding to the overwhelming weight of historical evidence that the flesh really is mightier than the Spirit.
And it was impossible for the infected, disease-ridden, and smut-laden body the early church became as it lost the glory it had at first. Then, grace was upon them all. It then mutated beyond all recognition in just a few centuries from its beginnings. Since then, that dead body has filled the world with her spores of mistrust, suspicion, and unbelief, teaching that obedience to God’s word is not only impossible, but is to be considered an active evil called “works salvation.”
However, it was not always so. The first-century church had been the bride-to-be, whose corporate life together, gathered in communities following the pattern of the one in Jerusalem, was the light of the world. With that light, she was bringing salvation to the ends of the earth (as they knew it then).
As the willingness of the many faded, as silence began to fill the gatherings (except for the emerging clergy), and as more and more disciples took thought for themselves, no longer freely sharing whatever worldly goods they had with one another, the light began to dim. As men began to speak in the flesh, seeking their own glory, the light of revelation ceased to shine upon them in their gatherings. The gates of the unseen realm began to prevail over the church.
That spiritual light only shone on those with the glory of their Master, the glory to be one as He and the Father are one. In the end, there were only a few who still had the glory of their Master. It departed as their unity crumpled in the face of things like showing favoritism to the rich, not heeding the cry of the poor and hungry in their midst, and not keeping themselves unstained from the world. This was in stark contrast to their beginnings when the apostles were ready to stop teaching rather than let the cry of the neglected widows and orphans ascend to heaven, for that cry would have condemned them before their God.
Early in the second century, when James wrote his epistle, he could see where their friendship with the world was leading them — to wars and murder in order to obtain the things they lusted after. And in this, James was certainly a prophet, as Christian history abundantly shows. The common life of the early believers was history by then, a part of their now-legendary beginnings, meaning that as far as the lives of the people were concerned, Acts 2 and 4 may as well have been a myth. It was no longer the living experience of believers everywhere or even anywhere. Another gospel, another Yahshua was being received, as Paul had already warned. They eventually even changed His name, as most modern translations call Him by a name that would have been foreign to His ears.
For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully. (2 Corinthians 11:4)
After Paul’s warnings, the cries of the other apostles and prophets, such as John and James, were also ignored.
The beginnings of the transition to another Jesus and another gospel and another Holy Spirit are easily found in the Scriptures, but not readily recognized for what they are. To do so would be to question the validity, not only of Christianity past (the horrors which many recoil from), but also of Christianity today as the vehicle of God’s salvation. Otherwise, one must repudiate the life and practices of the early churches as recorded in the New Testament, for the two — the Christian Church of the past nineteen centuries, and the vibrant, communal life of the churches in the first century — are irreconcilable.

Forum for June 8th

The Glory of the Early Church

Like a well-tended garden, the early church in Jerusalem took in an abundance of the light of the Son and produced abundant fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It was the same way in the churches the apostles established throughout the Roman world. Like a healthy plant, they produced this fruit through responding to the light, as the Apostle John spoke of repeatedly in his first epistle:
He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause of stumbling in him. He who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness… (1 John 2:10-11)
It was the light of revelation that John was talking about, the revelation that comes to those who love Messiah enough to obey Him. It was the same light from heaven that the Master confirmed in Peter when he proclaimed Him the Messiah. The light of the Messiah’s life in His disciples, emanating from His love poured out in their hearts, produced the predictable response of love for the brothers. This was not a  mystical love expressed in words alone, but a real love expressed in the very practical, real ways that John detailed in 1 John 3.6 According to John, one who did not freely share “the world’s goods” did not possess God’s love. He was only fooling himself. True love is shown in the kind of sharing seen in Jerusalem in Acts 2 and 4, where all things were held in common and no one lacked anything he needed. Anything less than this was not true love — such as holding on to one’s own life and possessions. God judged this very seriously in Jerusalem in those early, sincere, and pure days of the first-century church.
Their self-sacrificing love, expressed in both the big and small ways, was noted with wonder by the world around them. They were even said to have “turned the world upside down.” This quality of love expressed in their everyday life was proof that they were living and walking in the light. Or to put it another way, they lived their lives as though Yahshua were living in their communities in bodily form, as though His eyes were upon them, and the grace of His immediate presence was available to them.
Their willing hearts were continually responding to the teachings of the apostles, just as chlorophyll continually responds to the sun. The natural result was that they became more and more like their Master, Yahshua the Messiah. He had made the great promise to those who loved Him (which is to say, those who obeyed Him) that He would reveal Himself to them:
“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest
Myself to him.” (John 14:21)
The Analogy of Chlorophyll
Chlorophyll harnesses the vast energy of the sun, as it is transmitted across the empty, cold chasm of space through its radiant light, enabling the plant to grow, mature, reproduce, and withstand disease. That vast energy in the physical world may be compared to the Word of God in the spiritual realm. Those who respond to it prove they have the same spiritual “chlorophyll” as the early church. Naturally, they will bear the same fruit the first disciples did. The secret of the glory of the early church was this: The Savior and His disciples had the same heart to do the will of their Father in heaven. This willingness is the “chlorophyll” that continuously and fruitfully responds to the love/light of the Father. This heart passes on to the rest of the body all that it needs to grow, mature, reproduce, and resist infection, disease, and spiritual death.
Yahshua was the seed of life from which they came, which fell to the ground and died and so did not remain alone, but filled the hearts of many with love and hope. He showed it to the uttermost, even going to the cross for them in obedience to His Father. Receiving this heart is what enabled His disciples to receive the grace and power to do the Father’s will. They were truly linked to their God, and as a germinating seed explosively grows, they enjoyed in those days the growth that comes from God.
As they responded to God’s light in the gospel, they continued to express it through outspokenness in their gatherings, where all were free to share, not just a specialized, highly educated few. As James would write many years later, taking care of its widows and orphans was a sign of whether a church was actually connected to God. But this standard was set in the very beginning of the Church, in Acts 6, where taking care of the widows and orphans was a matter of the highest council and chief importance, which would have taken the apostles away from their ministry of the Word to serve if no one else were appointed. They knew the Father’s heart towards the widows and orphans as expressed in Psalm 68:
A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. (Psalm 68:5-6)
They did not want the communities they had begun to end up as a dry and parched land, no longer moistened by the showers of grace from heaven above.
It is only the rebellious — those actually disconnected from the God of Heaven — who ignore the widows and orphans in their midst. As James would write many years later, such people also do not bridle their tongues, but talk on and on:
If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1:26-27)
Preamble to Christian History
The epistle of James would, sadly, be the preamble to the awesome and terrible Christian history which followed the days and acts of the apostles. The epistles of the New Testament exposed the problems of the early churches (which the Holy Spirit evidently wanted us to know about), as well as the revelation given to those who had received the good news.
Far from being either a rigorous statement of theology or a glorious march through its early history, the New Testament chronicles what can only be described as a continual spiritual decline. By the time James wrote his epistle, the story was virtually over, the light of revelation extinguished, and the fire of love down to a few coals in the hearts of the few sincere. The grave warning signs were recorded not only in the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, but in many other places as well, from the first letter to the Corinthians on.
The following articles in this publication discuss many of them which, if one reads the New Testament with open eyes, are both shocking and revealing in their portrayal of the decline, even the death of the young church. Selfishness, immorality, greed, Gnosticism, and rebellion against God’s authority in the apostles and prophets were all fatal wounds, culminating in the takeover of the church by the Nicolaitans — the clergy. They were a grim representation of the deeply stained condition of most in the churches. Their garments ended up the color symbolic of death and evil — black. With them, night had come when no man could do the works of God, just as Messiah prophesied in John 9:4.
If you desire to be set free, not only from this evil religious system, but also from the deep effects of unbelief on your soul, read on. We have found the antidote to the silence of the churches in which only the educated few speak. It is the thankfulness of those truly saved by the blood of the Lamb, who overcome by the word of their testimony, and who do not love their own lives unto death. They have something better to love — His life!